'Thinking out of the 'box' is what I do. An Igbo adage said ''nkem di iche bu ajo afa''. I dont think that's true. Being different is the first step to a long lasting change.
Dare to be different, dare to think differently

Sunday, 30 October 2016

'Will MMM crash?' is not the right question to ask, 'When or how will it crash?' is, because it definitely will; naturally or through government intervention. All pyramid scheme do.

I was twelve when someone introduced the first pyramid scheme to my dad. He was curious but registered. After a week, or so, he stepped up to level two. The level one bonus was a factory-made bar soap. At that time, it was a luxury in our house and it made my mom happy, and dad too.

To get to the next level, he registered five of us under him. That is what pyramid scheme is all about - getting people under you to move up the ladder. The level one bonus also came for the five of us he registered plus his level two bonus which was a bag of salt.

To climb higher, he needed to register more people. That was when mom suggested that he cannot do it alone. She volunteered to help in getting people to register. I can recall vividly the aggressive sweet tongue, beating of her chest and showing off of her benefits which she used to convince as many people needed for the bottom of the ladder.

Her favorite quote became, "Hold me if anything should happen to your money".

That was a verbal expression of how confident she was about the scheme (the same aggressiveness many people are using to disseminate MMM). Less than a month later the scheme crashed. My father stopped at level three (a 20-litres gallon of vegetable oil). Pyramid schemes always get saturated.

My mom had her face in the cup of her palm for months and walked with deflated ego. She felt betrayed, cheated. This was evident in the ways she talked little.

Fast-forward to my third year in the university. Pyramid schemes came out in great numbers that 8 in 10 of students was a member of one pyramid scheme or the other. Some even paid in dollars. At a point, it seemed like I was the only one in my class that did not belong to any. Reasons were that I survived on 5 thousand naira a month ( a story for another day) and that I still carried mom's bitter story in my head and heart.

Pyramid schemes are cropping up again and the king of them all is MMM. Though it is different in a number of ways––you can resign to living on the 30% bonus of your investment––but to earn more––10% of referral bonus––you need to register people. Who wouldn't want to earn more? That MMM came at a time of national recession makes it more interesting. That is what Ponzi does––feed on your greed.

However, if you have decided to risk it with MMM, then you have no reason not to be greedy. Let me explain.

MMM guarantees 30% bonus, right? Good. That means that the higher you invest, the higher your returns. Assuming you invest only 20 thousand, that means you will harvest 30something thousand––i.e. 30% of your investment plus a $20 first time bonus––at the end of the 30 days period. The bonus will drop drastically the second time because the $20 bonus will not be there. Minus your profit from your seed capital and what you have is a write-off. You will end up reinvesting your capital.

What if you invested 1million? You are guaranteed 1.3something million at the end of the 30 days duration right? That's some money. You can then pull off your seed capital and reinvest the 300k for a 90k bonus at the end of the 30 days period. That is something to live with. By trading with your profit, you have little to worry about even if the scheme should fall to the ground today compared to when you have your seed capital in it.

Life is a risk. The truth is that the higher the risk, in most cases (especially when it comes to finance), the higher the reward and vice versa. The choice is your call. If you have decided to take the risk anyways, there is no point being modest about it. Give it your all.

So, if you have decided to become a part of this Money Making Madness or Money Milking Machine or whatever you choose to call it, then, you should give it your biggest shot. I am not a member because it defiles all ethics of making money but that doesn't mean you should think like me, right?

Tuesday, 2 August 2016

If there are ten entrepreneurs I admire in Nigeria, you are
among them. I love your passion for this country (against all the critics). I
watched on NTA and heard on radio, too, the way you sent trailer filled with
goods to the military fighting boko haram (a gesture that our oil moguls have
failed to replicate).

The day I watched your short interview on NTA (I wonder how
I became so addicted to this TV station) my admiration for you grew. You talked
about how your uncle failed to help you because he assumed you were such a
failure. This did not stop you from chasing your dream. After listening to you,
I vowed never to put my faith in the hands of anyone. Never!

I have also seen the way you canvass for people to use more
made in Nigeria. I think that is remarkable especially in the face of dwindling
economy. We need to use our own to grow our economy. You are one of the unsung
heroes of Nigeria today but I hope one day posterity will look on you.

However, something happened today that has made me want to
reconsider my admiration for you. Like most Nigerians, I have lost hope in
Nigerian products because they don't always have us at heart, rather, they need
our money.

I was really broke today (yes, I am not under any
employment) and was very hungry too. I had just two hundred and fifty naira
with me and decided to buy spaghetti and cook because the mama put ration has
really diminished. I bought the spaghetti for 200 naira (the last time I bought
it, it was 150, Buhari factor I guess). The remaining 50 naira I used to buy
your 'Ric-Giko sachet tomato (expiry date dated 2018). If you call it a last
supper, you would be technically not wrong because I hoped to eat and wait for
money to come from God-knows-where. I wouldn't have taken all these pain if I
wasn't on drugs. I am used to going to bed on empty stomach.

I was amazed when I opened your tomato sir. It looked like a
watery poo and tasted like marine nonsense. What options do I have? I have
bought it and had no money left so I had to use it. It ruined my meal and I had
to force back vomit so that something would be left in my tummy to hold the
drugs. Chief, let me pause and ask, "Does your family use that nonsense?"

Chief, if this is your idea of use made in Nigeria then you
need a rethink. Why would that shit cost the same (50 naira) with the tomato
paste imported into the country which of course is of better quality? Why can’t
you strive to stand out in quality and see if Nigerians wouldn't be inspired to
buy made in Nigeria?

Let me tell you a secret I have discovered trading with my
father for over 15 years; an average Nigerian prefers a cheaper alternative and
if the alternative is of fairly same price as the initial, Voila! They stick to
it for life. Believe me Chief, there are more average Nigerians in the country
than you can ever think about. If you improve the quality of your tomato paste,
you wouldn’t be the one preaching use made in Nigeria; Nigerians will beg you
to sustain the production.

Well, I was really pained but what can I do if not to blab
and hope it gets to somebody that knows somebody that... till it gets to you.
Chief, please don't spoil your reputation with bad products. You can do better.
Nigerians deserve better. With my experience today I would gladly run over as
many of custom officers as possible to make sure importation of tomato paste
continues.

I plan to save 8.33 naira every month and hope to try your
product again in the next six months (if the price remains the same). If the
only improvement I will notice is increase in price, then I will unlearn
everything I know of you and tell the tale of one man I believed could make the
difference in Nigeria only to turn and discover he was making a pocket for
himself.

Wednesday, 13 July 2016

There are
homes and there are homes. There are homes you will enter and the next minute
you want to leave. Not because the family is not friendly or welcoming but
because you have nothing to behold your eyes. On the other hand, there are some
homes you would enter and even when it is obvious you are not welcomed, you
would want to stay – and feed your eyes.

There is
one way to get the desired look and it is through Nobel carpets and rugs. A well
beautified home makes a home more homily. They say the way to a man’s heart is
through his tummy but I tell you that has eroded with time. Men lust after beauty
and women after class. A beautiful home is not out of the picture.

One way you
can guarantee a beautiful home – and probably the only way – is by choosing
from the various ranges of Nobel carpets and rugs. They come in various designs
and eye popping colours that are as irresistible as freshly tapped palm wine.

Their centre
rugs add finesse to the senses that you would want to sleep on them at nights. The
one that would marvel you the most is their carpets. On a personal note this time,
my first encounter with Noble carpet was in a friend’s house and sincerely, I
asked him where and how much he bought his tiles. I had to feel it myself when
he told me it was a carpet and not tiles. The design was a mimic of a tile and
I am sure anyone would have fallen for it too.

Beauty is
in the eyes of the beholder they say, but there are some beauties that has
everybody as a beholder and that is the kind of beauty that Nobel carpets and rugs brings into your home. Why not try them today?

Tuesday, 12 July 2016

Mum used to carry me in her arms to the
park. She would leave me with one of the female park nanny and scurry off to
join her girlfriends at the bar where they shared juicy gossips about who got a
new guy, whose guy was rich and who was secretly dating a minor while sipping
from bottles of chilled beer. Once I turned ten, mum allowed me to go on my
own. It is a little walk down the street, the first right turn then a straight
walk, pass the train station, another right then a short walk, and the orange
rail gate of Savannah Park rises across the road.

“Be careful when crossing the road,” mum
says.

“I will,” I voice right back.

I admire so many things about the park;
the carpet of green grass that stretches around the park, the ornamental
flowers lined in a way that accentuates their natural colours and makes the
field look like a painting leapt off an artist’s canvass. For some of us that
are not afraid to wander, there is a sparkling river when you descend the hill
at the back of the park. I understand it supplies water to the municipal. The
park guards scolds us each time they see us descend the hill. There is a small
strip of land like an Island where the sky meets the water, like it is
preventing the sky from touching the water.

What eats my time is not the white beach
sand and swing on the playground which bigger boys monopolize to show how
romantic they can be to their girlfriends. They raise them onto the sitting
platform and push them gently from behind. They take turns to do that. How
absurd! I also don’t like the roller coaster because it makes me want to throw
up. The slide is too childish for me now.

Fred, Mike and I like to climb the tree
house that stands in the middle of the park like the forbidden tree in Garden
of Eden. The wood steps nailed onto the stem guides us up safely. The tree
house is spacious and can take up to five of us. When I was younger I always
wanted to climb the tree house but the park attendants won’t let me. From the
tree house you can see the entire park and over the hill to the beautiful
river. I love the blue colour of the summer sky on the river which quickly
changes to yellow-orange flakes as the sun comes out.

Mike is the shortest of the three of us
and the chubbiest too. Fred is lank and the tallest but still fits into the
tree house––though it worries him that time is fast approaching when he will
not fit in again. I am just in-between the two. I don't know how to describe
myself but people say I have my mum’s oval face and my dad’s square shoulders.

“Be careful or you fall and explode,” I
taunt Mike as he hugs the steps frightfully.

I appreciate the park more, since our
teacher taught us how trees purify our air without taking a dime from us. Our teacher
tells us things that make his lips unsteady like he is afraid of something or
perhaps somebody, and he begins to talk in whispers. This happened few weeks
ago when he told us how some influential men in the country are ruining government
plans for clean energy.

“Selfish men,” he called them. “Because
they have refineries outside the country from which our government buys PMS,
they are frustrating any plan to explore clean energy. They know it will affect
their sales.”

Tiny droplets of sweat broke out on his
face and he stopped talking.

The park is becoming thinner. People are
buying portions of it to erect new houses. It baffles me why there should be
new houses while the available ones still has empty rooms. Mum took me to one
of her friend’s lodge last month and the mansion still has over fifty unoccupied
rooms according to my mum’s friend.

The park is no longer quiet because of
the noise from the construction machines. They dump much rubbish into the river
too; debris, mud, oils from the heavy machines, cements, paper, plastic and
rods. As far as my eyes can see from the tree house, the river is no longer
sparkling like diamonds in splinter of light. If it is my first time of looking
that direction from the tree house, I will think it is an unexplored wasteland.
The number of people that visits the park is thinning too. The excitement that
used to be on my face whenever I am in the park is now replaced by tingling on
my spine like I am in a graveyard. I jerk at sudden movements, and the
whistling of wind makes me uneasy. I am worried when I learn Sam’s dad owns an
oil company on the strip of land at the horizon because our teacher told us the
terrible things that could happen if there is an oil spill but each time I peer
into that distance, I see nothing.

It started like rumour that the entire
park was bought over by Sam’s dad to make it a dumping ground for his companys’
waste for easy treatment and discharge into the river. The park is marked for
demolition.

“Sam, please ask your dad if it is
true,” I plead. “Tell him how we love the tree house.”

Fred nods, “this is the only good
childhood memory I have.”

“O…k,” Sam stutter, “but my dad is
stubborn.”

“Please try,” I insist.

The news Sam brings to us the next day
forces Goosebumps to form on our skin. He confirms it is true that his father
has paid for the place but what is scarier is that the place will be leveled in
three days’ time. I slump to my buttocks with my back resting on the wall of
the tree house. Frank is pacing up and down.

“We can still do something to stop this.
Can’t we?” Frank says to no one in particular.

I sigh. Sam is frowning.

I love the way crazy ideas come to my
head when I am in a fix.

“Oh yes!
If-we-get-all-the-kids-that-comes-to-the-park-to-rally-around-the-tree-house-I-am-sure-they-will-retreat,”
I speak in one pulse and my words sound like rambling.”

“Jay, calm down,” Fred gestures. “What
did you just say?”

I repeat myself, but slower this time.

“Yes, that’s right,” Fred scream, and
crush Sam’s ribs with hug, then lifts him few inches off the ground.

My mouth is open staring at Fred lift
Sam from the ground. The idea that Fred will snap like a twig on recoil swirl
in my head. Fred drops Sam and stands and nothing happens to him. We are all
laughing. We share out the regions each person will go. Sam will be persuading
the kids in the estate which his dad owns. Fred will win the kids living around
the park up to the train station while I will influence the kids from the block
opposite the train station to the block after my house. We agree to meet in the
tree house every morning to discuss our progress.

It is a day before demolition. I am
nervous. Each time I raise my eyes to the tree house, flashes of what will
remain when the bulldozers are done fills my head––plain field with no green
lined by tyres tracks. These thoughts make me sweat a lot like our teacher.
These must be some of the things that go through his head.

We are sitting in the tree house
searching frantically for all the children we spent the past two days
convincing to join our crusade but see none. The doppler revving of tractors
makes my heart thump faster than it normally does. I look through the open
window and see three tractors of various configurations with their exhaust
puffing black smoke into the air. Sam’s dad step out of his Prado Jeep fully
kitted in black suit. We climb down from the tree house one after the other.
Sam’s dad is an older version of Sam; short and rounded on the torso.

Sam is begging his father to leave the
tree house. He is trying to explain to his father the need for him to change
his line of business and invest in clean energy that will bring down air
pollution. Fred and I are standing with our backs to the tree house.

“They will uproot me first before they
can touch the tree house,” I whisper to Fred.

“Me too,” he say.

Sam’s dad is agitated and his wrinkled
face is showing his irritation. He is raising his voice and pushing Sam out of
his sight. People are beginning to gather at the scene. A newscaster arrives
and raises his camera, pacing around to get everyone on camera. Fred and I
refuse to bulge. A crowd has formed behind Sam’s dad and the tractors; men,
women, children, old and young.

“Clear these things out of this place,”
Sam’s dad orders the tractor operators.

My heart pumps again as the tractor
cackle till the engine runs evenly. I pin my eyes hoping for the worst. I am
wondering what Fred is thinking.

A tiny but firm voice comes from the
crowd, “I am with Sam.”

I
open my eyes and flash them to the direction of the voice. I recognize the boy.
He is Terry, the bully that lives in my street. He is nodding his big head,
punching his right fist on his left open palm and repeating himself as he walks
towards us. I never liked Terry but the way he is swaggering towards us is
making my head swell and I am forcing back the smile in my heart fruitlessly.

His followers and other children who are
afraid he will beat them up if they do nothing begin to march up with him, lending
voice to his chant. Sam’s dad is stunned and Sam stops begging. The older men
and women turn to Sam’s dad and begin to call him bad names.

“We will be back tomorrow and nothing
will stop me from bringing this place down,” Sam’s dad say and enter his car.

The car zooms off. Everyone begins to
cheer.

As I lie down that night, sleep refuses
to take me on a ride. I keep rolling from side to side. I know we were just
lucky today and may not be tomorrow. Other thoughts that unsettle me are; what
mum will say if it gets to her ears what I have done today? Why did we pitch
Sam against his dad? I inhale till my lungs are full and let my thoughts go out
with it.

My head hurts. It is like I blinked and
it is morning. Mum is making breakfast. Egg is sizzling in the frying pan.

“Good morning mum,” I greet.

“Good morning honey. Thought you will
never wake up.”

I yawn. The phone rings and she
stretches her hand to pick it out of the wall.

“Hello?” she speaks into the phone.

Short pause.

She turns to me, “honey this is for
you.”

I take the phone from her, “hello.”

It is Sam. He is calling to tell me that
his dad has come down with stroke.

“What!” I scream. “What happened?”

Mum freezes with her eyes on me. Sam is
explaining how vandals and pirates attacked his dad’s oil company in the night.
There was a shoot-out between them and security and in the process there was an
explosion. He said the river is polluted with crude oil, and that people are
falling sick from drinking the water.

“People are pointing fingers at us.” His
voice burst into sobs and trails off.

I stare at the phone for a while before
I hang it back on the wall.

“Is there any problem honey?” mum ask.

I shake my head from side to side afraid
that if I open my mouth, words––even those I wish not to say––will come out. I
move to the television and press the power button. There is a news flash
written in red scrolling across the bottom of the screen. A female newscaster
is talking about it.

“Hospitals in the municipal are
witnessing a horde of victims. The three hospitals in the municipal can’t take
any more and ambulances are in a convoy taking people to hospitals in others
cities. The death toll is rising. The cause has been traced to water
pollution.”

They show a cut scene of the chaos in
the municipal and the dark river. Tears come easily to the eyes of those who
are not already sick.

I visit the park. The tree house is
still standing, and the gentle gush of wind sways the green leaves. The park is
deserted; no security, no attendants, nobody. I make my way to the back of the
park and climb over the hill.

The river is a total disaster and it is
the only source of water the municipal has. The entire surface of the river as
far as my eyes can see is covered with slurry-like thick black liquids. Fishes
are trying to jump out of the water but as they do, they get their entire body
covered with crude. They jump a little more and stay afloat. I realize the
bumps on the water surface are dead fishes. There are so many of them. I know
it is a matter of time before those of us who are not down with the river fiver
will die of thirst and dehydration.

I
head to Fred’s house and knock. No response. I knock again and again. A next
door neighbour opens her door.

“Boy, you are making a racket.”

I turn her direction, “I am sorry, but I
need to see my friend.”

“Go check the hospital and let us have
some peace.”

“Hospital? What...” I begin to say but
she hiss and retreat inside.

In front of Sam’s estate, there are men
in their thirties and forties holding placards with different inscriptions. The
security man has shut the gates and the protesters want to go in. A young boy
about my age picks up a stone and hurls it through the gaps on the gate. The
women among them are not running around and hitting the gates like the men.
They gather themselves in a circle singing death songs. Tears are coming to my
eyes and make me feel like there are tiny stones pressing on my retina. I turn
around and walk away. I think of all the ways these would have been averted.
But Sam is still my friend and it hurts to see him unsafe. I feel the same
thing I felt when the tree house was threatened.

The death toll has clocked eight
thousand and fifty six the last time I listened to news. I am getting scared
because our reserve is almost up. UN and neighbouring countries are bringing
aid but there are never enough. Schools and offices are still shut in the
municipal. Roads are becoming desolate except for the intermittent blaring of
ambulance siren.

I
am walking down the street, going to nowhere in particular. I enjoy the heat of
the sun on my skin and the feel of the breeze on my face but the street smells
different. It smells of death and decaying flesh and the wails rippling out of
some houses I pass are piercing my eardrums like someone is stuffing cotton
swab in my ears. A car slows down beside me and the window winds down.

“What you did for the tree house is
brave. It aired on television for days. That maniac would have killed us all if
he had pushed through.”

I panic. Thank goodness my mum never
switches on the television. I bring down my shield and we begin to talk. He
introduces himself as Dr. Hanks. He tells me how they are trying to use
detergent to clean up the oil but regrets the detergent will cause further harm
to aquatic life. He is thinking of a better way.

“There is something that eats up oil
around the tree house,” I joke.

I recall there was a time Sam spilled
his food which had lots of groundnut oil while climbing the tree. The next day
the oil was gone.

“Genius! I wonder why I never thought of
that,” Dr. Hanks smile.

I take him to the tree house as he
requested and he takes a sample of the soil around the tree. Four days later,
it is on news that Dr. Hanks has discovered Alcanivorax,
a bacterium that eats oil. He has genetically modified it in the lab––to make
it more efficient––and spread it over the river.

“The water is becoming clean and in few
days’ time it will be safe again,” Dr. Hanks explain.

Dr. Hanks is getting much attention and
it pains me that he has not mentioned my name. As I watch him answer the questions
the presenter is asking him, I think of the terrible things I will do to him if
our path crosses again.

A lawless society is one without codes of conduct. Nigerian
campuses as a mini society have witnessed some level of lawlessness in the area
of dressing. It is without doubt that certificates are supposed to be awarded in
character and learning but it’s appalling how those who give out these degrees
close an eye to character while dishing out the ‘prized papers’.

Dressing or our dress code is that aspect of our character
that we show to a stranger on first encounter; it is the first descriptive
power we hand an outsider regards to our character. Dressing alone speaks
volume of a person's personality because every dress has an accompanying
interpretation. I presume this is why bankers adopt dress codes as means of
identifying them wherever they go.

Nigerian campuses in present times have turned into a runway
for 'models' to show off their clothes or sexy body as the case may be. Besides
those faculties that have issued a strict dress code adherence, it is not
uncommon to walk into a lecture hall and not find a dude putting on shorts or another
brandishing chest hair and ill looking braids or a damsel putting on strap
gowns showing cleavages that should otherwise be left hidden. Those that feign
to dress properly end up putting on tight fitted clothing that projects their
curves. It is obvious that most students have failed to understand how the
human minds wander on certain sights.

There is a quote that says, ‘the way you dress is the way
you are addressed’, and how do you expect people not to confuse you with what
your appearance tells of you? The rising tide of rape and sexual harassment in
campuses is one of those crimes that have a strong bond with the mode of
dressing among Nigerian students because it is the colourful display of the
petals of flowers that attracts flies to the nectar. Ladies expose too much
that they tend to draw visitors to ‘explore’. In this case, unwanted visitors.
Youths of today simply copy everything portrayed on the media without asking
the basic question, ‘WHY’. This is made evident when a guy or a lady puts on a
party wear to lecture halls.

Casting back to when I was in school, there was this
incident that won’t easily be forgotten with time. Some terror gang robed a
shop in the campus close to where we sat. When the police arrived, they took my
friend because he was dressed from head to toe in black leather wears. This is
one of the numerous cases of mistaken identity which most students often find
themselves because of their attire.

As a student, I was often preoccupied during lectures from
watching the dress some of my female colleagues brought to class. Some were
just so bad a sight to behold but it’s so unfortunate the eyes are the hardest
part of the body to control. I am sure the lecturers also had a feel of the
distraction to some degree.

Campuses are
now centres for fashion contests. Most students walk the extra mile to meet up
with the current trend in campus showbiz. In the process, some fabricate lies
to squeeze out money from their innocent parents, instilling in them the
horrible notion that cost of education is on the high side. It is often based
on these erroneous ideologies that most unenlightened parents beat their chest
in market places that it is very expensive to train a child through campus.
Other students will prefer to do it the hard way by going into crime to fund
their dream looks which in turn sky-rockets the crime wave in campuses.

The main problem here is that those at the top of affairs
who are supposed to act as guide to these young minds shy away from their
responsibilities with the vague excuse and assumption that someone in a higher
institution of learning is mature enough to know the dos and don’ts. This is a
total fallacy as they tend to forget in a hurry that learning never ends.

If dressing truly depicts character and identity, what stops
our campuses from having a good identity? Why won’t one walk into a Nigerian
campus and at a glance differentiate the students from the visitors? Why should
students’ mode of dressing in our campuses be an eye sore? The time is ripe for
some of the 'whys' to be answered and the right answer in this case should
begin with the introduction of dress code in all Nigerian campuses.

Every action sparks up a corresponding chain reaction. In
this light, assuming dress code is introduced and implemented; crimes in the
form of rape will have been cut down. Theft will also witness a downward
adjustment to some extent because most of the campus robbers use their loot to
upgrade their looks. If we spend so much time molding great minds, why can’t
character follow simultaneously?

Tuesday, 9 February 2016

The need to explore agriculture as an alternative to
oil hitherto is the most sang song in Nigeria after the national anthem.
Successive governments have pledged to revive the agricultural sector to its
past glory (the days of the groundnut pyramid of Kano and the oil palm
plantations of the South East). And what is their approach? Subsidizing
fertilizers and farm inputs (which most times doesn’t get to the real farmers
in the field, rather it ends with the air-conditioned bedroom farmers).

On a normal day, that should have been a good bait to
lure people (particularly the youths who are the targeted test organisms) into
agriculture but truth be told, Nigerians are not ‘normal’ people. Nigeria has
gotten to that point of rot where pride of job or career is lost to a
communicable disease called get-rich-quick syndrome.

To revive agriculture, you don’t need to subsidize
anything or give out farm inputs for free. What you need is to convince an
average Nigerian graduate that they can make money (plenty of it) from farming.
If you cannot achieve that, borrow all the money in the world and pump into
agriculture and it will be in futility. The same old people and plebs doing the
jobs now will still be the same faces there tomorrow. Sadly we all know how far
they can go.

The mistake was made a long time ago and thinking that
it can be corrected overnight is a mere myth. Government should forget the
current crop of youths (17 – wherever the age tag, ‘youth’, ends). Going after
them is a wild goose chase. I imagine someone coming to give me lecture about
going to the farm with my current orientation, heavens save you I don’t have a
slap to give at that moment because I will give you a resounding one.

Quote me, as much as 80% of youths, right from their
first year in the university are already day dreaming and romancing with oil
companies and multinationals in their mind (including the so-called
agricultural science students).

My approach is a practical and simple one and goes
thus;

First off, Proverbs 22:6 says, “Train up a child in the
way he should go, And when he is old he will not depart from it” (NKJV). This
passage summarises my approach. Revival of agriculture should start from
schools––primary and secondary.

Let having a school farm be a pre-requisite before a
school can be approved. As young as from primary five, the class should be
split into teams and each team given a portion of land to farm any food of
their choice (under the guidance of their agricultural science teacher) on the
condition that the crop can be harvested within three months (duration of a
term).

Let the quality and quantity of each groups’ harvest be
recorded as part of their continuous assessment (a substantial part). In the
few schools (and I guess if there is any, really) where this is already in
practice, there is a disturbing trend in which the school management gang up
and convert the produce while the pupils get nothing. This is a NO NO and in
fact is one of the problems. It should be made a criminal offence.

On the contrary, the school management should be
charged with organising a food or agricultural fair at the end of the term. The
school will be saddled with the responsibility of inviting dignitaries too. The
teams will get a chance to sell off their produce in unction. The basic idea is
to let these young minds know they can make money from agriculture (farming).

The schools can keep 10 – 20% of the revenue each team
gets for maintaining the farms but the bulk of the money should stay and be
shared among each team members. This can be replicated in a larger scale for
secondary and possibly tertiary institutions and with other forms of farming
such as fishery, piggery, poultry and so on. Believe me; the thrill will not
wear off in a hurry.

Where
is the place of government in all of these?

The government will play the fatherly role of putting
the right policies in place (like making sure schools comply and formulating
laws to punish defaulting schools and some form of tax incentives). Government
can also provide loans and land to farmers who are working on expansion. Like
many other venture, agriculture will not live long if starved of social
amenities of which the most important are road and water. Another surging
problem is security.

All these are primary responsibilities of the government.
When all these have been done and agriculture still continues its downward
plunge in Nigeria, then I will conclude that the Bible lied.

Sunday, 3 January 2016

I like to liken public-private sectorpartnership to marriage. The man (government/public sector) is the head. No
matter how rich the woman (private sector) is, she still has to submit to the
head.

As the head of the family, any decision
taken by the man will directly affect the woman. Restrictions such as the type
of friends the woman will have (partners; local and international), what the
woman can buy (trade restrictions) and the amount of contributions the woman
must make towards the running of the family (tax) will determine how successful
the woman will become (successful entrepreneurs) and in extension, the amount
of children she will have or be willing to have (employment creation).

Every business is created for the sole
purpose of making profit and when this goal appears threatened by a policy with
no close alternative, there will always be a protest in one way or the other.

In playing fatherly role, government should
not make policies that will drop down the throat of private sectors like a
crusted garri, rather, they should be
presented with choice with the odds favouring the direction the government
wishes it to go. For example, instead of just banning the importation,
manufacture and sell of generating sets as alternative to erratic power supply
(especially in sub-Saharan Africa where power is a major issue), government
could decide to increase the tax on such products and decrease that of the
clean energy alternative which the government seek to promote.

Like a submissive wife, what will follow is
a gradual but steady phasing out of the former because it would become
expensive to run and less profitable (an abrasion to business ideology’s lower
cost and increase profit). Who says the same technique cannot be applied to
every other part of the economy to encourage the private sector to embrace more
eco-friendly means of doing business?

The global fall in oil price can be a
blessing in disguise. Governments globally can decide to pull out from
subsidizing oil for her citizens and channel it to subsidizing public
transports so that it becomes very expensive to drive a private car. This will
get many cars off the road (which are CO2 emitters) and create
employment for the populace (as public transport drivers).

Having it at the back of mind that a great
economy is driven by the private sector, it is pertinent for government
policies to reach the private sector as friendly out-stretched arm. The pursuit
of a sustainable economy may be a slow climb but definitely not a hopeless
case. What if wood and paper industries are mandated to grow all the timber
they use? What if there is a contest that rewards the fisherman with the
largest pond? What if the cost of obtaining raw plastic/rubber becomes too high
that it becomes cheaper to pay people to return used plastics? All these points
to one direction; make businesses think sustainability right?

Part
of the friction in public-private agreement is information gap. When the
private sector is involved in government decision making process, they will
have a better understanding to WHY it is necessary to do things differently
(government too will understand the challenges and fears of these sectors and
together they sit to proffer ways to make the transition hassle-free) and there
is a better chance that businesses will want to be a part of the process rather
than against it.

About Me

My name is Anthony Emecheta l Enthusiastic writer l Not award winning anything l One failed attempt at a novella publication l Freelance writer, but don't expect me to do it for free l Trust me to always talk about what people don't want to talk about.